by John Keller | Aug 12, 2010 | Customer News, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Convenience Store Decisions picked Rutters as their winner of the 2010 Convenience Store Chain Of The Year award. Rutter’s is the second consecutive chain under 100 stores to receive the award, emphasizing that it’s not the size of the chain that matters, rather the quality of its offering. Rutter’s has evolved from small town player to industry leader and has impacted the way the industry does business, especially in the area of technology. President and CEO Scott Hartman has emerged as an industry leader instrumental in pushing technology standards that allow convenience retailers to compete more effectively with supermarkets and mass merchandisers.
“Retailers are under enormous pressure as they battle depressed margins, unprecedented competition and high credit card processing fees both in store and at the pump,” said Tom McIntyre, group publisher of The Convenience Store Decisions Group. “The purpose of the Chain of the Year Award is to showcase the best of the best in convenience retailing and Rutter’s certainly meets that definition.”
Skyline Products is proud to have Rutter’s as a PriceAdvantage customer for over five years.
by John Keller | May 26, 2010 | Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
In the 5/26/2010 edition of the CSP Daily News, the NACStech Roundup report includes a summary of what Skyline Products is doing with the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software. It describes how c-stores who upgrade hardware for PCI compliance get the additional benefit of fuel price management to the sign and POS.
“Skyline Products, Colorado Springs, Colo: Increasing, electronic capability at the c-store is allowing Skyline the ability to integrate and execute fuel pricing strategies, according to company officials. Aaron McHugh, division director, said PCI deadlines have forced many to upgrade registers and wide-area networks, which allows for the functionality necessary to better control and execute pricing changes.”
For years Skyline has touted the ability to hang fuel price signs off the VeriFone POS system, and allow the POS to change fuel prices at the sign. Now in 2010 Skyline’s PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software application provides the additional benefit of allowing the Fuel Manager to change fuel prices from headquarters, down to the VeriFone Sapphire POS, and out to the sign. Once the price is changed at the sign, confirmation is provided back to the PriceAdvantage fuel price software at headquarters, with a time/date stamp alerting the Fuel Manager when exactly the prices were changed at the sign and across the system. This closed loop integration has already improved speed to the street at customers such as Fikes (CEFCO convenience stores) based in Temple, TX.
by John Keller | May 4, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Technology, PriceAdvantage
PriceAdvantage 3.2, the latest fuels pricing solution from Skyline Products is now available. This latest release includes key new features based on customer request.
PriceAdvantage adds the Gilbarco Passport to its list of supported POS integrations. Other already supported POS systems include Radiant and VeriFone. All PriceAdvantage POS integrations allow fuel price managers to directly post prices to the street from headquarters. Each POS integration enables a fully integrated price change process which saves time at all levels, creating a more streamlined operation, and maintaining more control.
PriceAdvantage 3.2 adds real-time sign intelligence, giving technicians more insight into exactly what is going with signs at the store level. Sign issues can be brought to attention more quickly allowing them to be resolved before they become a problem.
Version 3.2 also adds support for PDI Enterprise imports. Now fuel managers can see daily, up-to-date PDI Enterprise information on volume and cost. It is this insight from PDI Enterprise that allows fuel managers to make the best price optimization decisions.
by John Keller | Apr 14, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
Skyline Products announced today that they have launched a new separate division to focus solely on their patent-pending PriceAdvantage™ software that is literally changing the way the convenience store industry manages fuel pricing.
The industry has taken notice. “Customers like Sheetz, Royal Farms, Fikes Wholesale, Spinx and others are faster, more efficient, fully automated way to run their fuel business,” says Aaron McHugh, who is leading the charge for the new PriceAdvantage software division.
Sheetz saw $141,000 cost savings, Fikes Wholesale, Spinx and Rutter’s are now controlling price changes from headquarters to their pumps, POS and electronic signs. “With the tactical elements fully automated, our customers can better focus on their strategy,” says McHugh. The return on investment for PriceAdvantage is often less than 12 months making this one of the most effective and efficient tools in the industry.
Seven years ago, this long-time hardware and software company saw an opportunity to dramatically increase their customers’ fuel profits by providing fuel managers with critical competitive information, making it simple and quick to implement price changes. PriceAdvantage puts the optimal price at the fuel manager’s fingertips and allows them to command every price change from headquarters. This maximizes fuel profitability by guaranteeing that the right price is the price is posted.
Greg Stadjuhar, Skyline Vice President of Sales says, “With our long time involvement in the petroleum industry, we recognized an opportunity to leverage the ingenuity and success we’d experienced with command and control software in the transportation industry for the last twenty years. It became clear very quickly that we had the right formula. Almost immediately, PriceAdvantage became a tremendous success for Skyline and our customers.”
Skyline has been so successful with PriceAdvantage they are launching a new division dedicated solely to its continued development and success. “The market has been in need of this for a while. If we can put a man on the moon, why do fuel price managers still have to manually hunt down competitive and market data, and call every store for a price change?” says McHugh. “We’ve solved that problem, and we are the only company doing it. The time is right, the market is ready, and we are delivering.”
Underscoring their commitment, they have hired software industry veterans to help implement a strong infrastructure and accelerate their success. Joining McHugh’s team are John Keller and Quentin Goin, each bringing more than 13 years of business-to-business software industry experience.
Sr. Product Manager, John Keller, says, “This is an exciting and compelling opportunity for me. I thrive on taking customer and market input, and helping create a solution that they don’t know how they ever lived without. Skyline’s PriceAdvantage software began something that will allow us to literally revolutionize the way fuel prices are managed. This is only the beginning of an industry-wide shift and we are on the forefront making it happen.”
A perfect compliment to Keller’s skills, Quentin Goin, Sales and Implementation Engineer, works side-by-side with customers and implements a configured PriceAdvantage solution to match their needs. Passionate about his work, an animated Goin says, “I have been helping customers solve problems with technology since 1997, and I have never seen such a rapid and considerable return on investment as Skyline customers get with PriceAdvantage.”
Says McHugh, “Skyline’s innovation and commitment to solving these problems is driving expansion and growth even in a tough economy. The contribution of these two accomplished software industry experts has already increased the speed at which we are delivering high quality solutions to our customers.”
by John Keller | Apr 14, 2010 | Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software, PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
John Keller, Sr. Product Manager and R&D Manager of the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software division of Skyline Products will be a member of the PCATS panel at the upcoming NACStech tradeshow May 5-7, 2010 in New Orleans.
The panel of 5 will discuss the topic relevant to convenience stores “Why Doesn’t This Stuff Work Together? Device Integration Work Being Conducted By PCATS”. The moderator will be Scott Wood, PCATS Director, Standards Development & Maintenance. It should be a lively discussion.
by John Keller | Mar 29, 2010 | Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Skyline Products announced that the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software group has been spun off to form a separate division of the company.
“When we began developing this software 6½ years ago, most convenience stores didn’t have an Internet connection and most of them were still processing credit-card transactions through a dial-up modem,” McHugh said Monday. “We used to have to tell customers at that time why they should automate, but now we simply tell them about our product and convince them it is the right answer to solve the problem they are having, changing fuel prices efficiently.”
“We have had potential customers tell us that they are lucky to get prices changed in a third of their stores in one day. This can do it all in one morning,” said Greg Stadjuhar, Skyline’s vice president of sales and marketing and co-owner. The software is used by chains such as Royal Farms and Sheetz.
Read the newspaper coverage of the announcement here.
